IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/labour/v26y2012i4p419-435.html

Vacancy Referrals, Job Search, and the Duration of Unemployment: A Randomized Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Per Engström
  • Patrik Hesselius
  • Bertil Holmlund

Abstract

One goal of the public employment service is to facilitate matching between unemployed job seekers and job vacancies; another goal is to monitor job search so as to bring search efforts among the unemployed in line with search requirements. The referral of job seekers to vacancies is one instrument used for these purposes. We report results from a randomized Swedish experiment where the outcome of referrals is examined. To what extent do unemployed individuals actually apply for the jobs they are referred to? Does information to job seekers about increased monitoring affect the probability of applying and the probability of leaving unemployment? The experiment indicates that a relatively large fraction (one third) of the referrals do not result in job applications. Information about intensified monitoring causes an increase in the probability of job application, especially among young people. However, we find no significant impact on the duration of unemployment.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Per Engström & Patrik Hesselius & Bertil Holmlund, 2012. "Vacancy Referrals, Job Search, and the Duration of Unemployment: A Randomized Experiment," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 26(4), pages 419-435, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:labour:v:26:y:2012:i:4:p:419-435
    DOI: 10.1111/labr.2012.26.issue-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/10.1111/labr.2012.26.issue-4
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/labr.2012.26.issue-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bart COCKX & Corinna GHIRELLI & Bruno VAN DER LINDEN, 2013. "Monitoring Job Search Effort with Hyperbolic Time Preferences and Non-Compliance: A Welfare Analysis," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2013006, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    2. Jonas Maibom & Michael Rosholm & Michael Svarer, 2017. "Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Early Meetings and Activation," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 119(3), pages 541-570, July.
    3. Marco Caliendo & Ricarda Schmidl, 2016. "Youth unemployment and active labor market policies in Europe," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-30, December.
    4. Eva Van Belle & Ralf Caers & Marijke De Couck & Valentina Di Stasio & Stijn Baert, 2019. "The Signal of Applying for a Job Under a Vacancy Referral Scheme," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 251-274, April.
    5. Joost Bollens & Bart Cockx, 2017. "Effectiveness of a job vacancy referral scheme," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 6(1), pages 1-24, December.
    6. repec:diw:diwwpp:dp1542 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Cheung, Maria & Egebark, Johan & Forslund, Anders & Laun, Lisa & Rödin, Magnus & Vikström, Johan, 2019. "Does job search assistance reduce unemployment? Experimental evidence on displacement effects and mechanisms," Working Paper Series 2019:25, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    8. Gerard J Van Den Berg & Barbara Hofmann & Arne Uhlendorff, 2016. "The Role of Sickness in the Evaluation of Job Search Assistance and Sanctions," Working Papers 2016-17, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    9. Gerard J. van den Berg & Hanno Foerster & Arne Uhlendorff, 2021. "A Structural Analysis of Vacancy Referrals with Imperfect Monitoring and the Strategic Use of Sickness Absence," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 1042, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 17 Sep 2023.
    10. Marios Michaelides & Peter Mueser & Jeffrey Smith, 2019. "Youth Unemployment and U.S. Job Search Assistance Policy during the Great Recession," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 13-2019, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    11. Gerard J. van den Berg & Barbara Hofmann & Arne Uhlendorff, 2016. "The Role of Sickness in the Evaluation of Job Search Assistance and Sanctions," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1542, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    12. Schmidl, Ricarda, 2015. "The Effectiveness of Early Vacancy Information in the Presence of Monitoring and ALMP," IZA Discussion Papers 9575, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Morescalchi Andrea & Paruolo Paolo, 2020. "Too Much Stick for the Carrot? Job Search Requirements and Search Behaviour of Unemployment Benefit Claimants," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 1-21, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C99 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Other
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:labour:v:26:y:2012:i:4:p:419-435. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csrotit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.